The USA’ prime federal auditor, the Governmental Accountability Workplace (GAO), simply launched a report chronicling an ongoing crime wave on America’s public waters.
This scathing report discovered threats to navigation, imperiled security of American mariners and offshore employees, air pollution that harms communities and fisheries, and a looming tab that might value the American public between $40 and $70 billion. Shocked you haven’t learn something about this but? Preserve studying.
Violating federal legislation, regulation, and even express contracts with the American authorities, the perpetrators embody a few of the largest oil and gasoline firms on the planet who act with impunity. Much more stunning is that the regulators who’re supposed to stop this are both unwilling or unable to cease them.
The GAO discovered that regardless of these firms’ eye-watering income, they’ve left 700 offshore oil and gasoline wells and 500 platforms which might be late for dismantling and decommissioning within the Gulf of Mexico. The GAO additionally discovered that the Bureau of Security and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the enforcement company patrolling oil and gasoline operations in American waters, is failing to carry firms who’re breaking the legislation accountable.
Once we consider against the law wave, we consider carjackings and pickpockets – theft of private property on the private degree. We have a tendency not to consider shadowy fits in London or Houston failing to wash up hulking and rusting platforms creaking in an ocean breeze – or hurling projectiles throughout a class 5 hurricane. However these are certainly crimes, and these oil and gasoline CEOs are getting off scot-free.
This difficulty just isn’t one thing new. As a coverage analyst within the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration, I used to be tasked with exploring potential in-house options to cope with the trash left behind by oil and gasoline firms rusting within the Gulf and the way we may forestall it from taking place sooner or later.
I explored quite a lot of choices, together with a legislative choice to impose a new industry-wide severance tax and set up a decommissioning belief fund to guard the American public from the looming invoice left by oil and gasoline firms. And even years earlier than, an inside authorities memo from the then Marine Minerals Service (MMS) circa 1990, detailed the very same issues I used to be attempting to unravel and have been later confirmed by the GAO report.
One would assume that huge oil and gasoline firms and personal fairness corporations making record-breaking income may simply clear up their messes in our waters. Simply within the final 9 years, the Gulf OCS produced sufficient crude oil to generate an estimated $76 billion in revenue siphoned from our public assets, which is greater than sufficient to pay the price of decommissioning each rig and nicely within the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of these income and ample warning, over 75 % of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure within the Gulf of Mexico was overdue, based on BSEE’s deadlines.
Non-public firms who drill within the Outer Continental Shelf – and make a big revenue off our waters – are legally obliged to “completely plug wells, take away platforms and different amenities, decommission pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all related obstructions created by the lease operations” inside one yr of ceasing business operations. This can be a widespread sense obligation, however it doesn’t do a lot good when regulators fail to implement it. As a substitute, because the GAO report discovered, the burden of cleansing up these operations is falling on the American public. As a substitute of constructing bridges and investing in our communities, we’re selecting up their tab.
The grand irony of all of that is that the financial exercise spurred by stepping up enforcement of those obligations could possibly be vital. Imposing decommissioning obligations may start instantly, using workforces and tools as we speak. A 2022 examine estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure “would create 5,265 jobs per yr to finish this work, together with direct employees, contractors, and suppliers, [and] greater than 10,500 jobs per yr, economy-wide.” It will additionally make extra seafloor out there for different makes use of like dredging for coastal restoration and offshore wind.
BSEE and BOEM should train their authority and maintain these firms accountable for breaking the legislation, fleecing the American public, and destroying our pure assets. Penalties should be swift, public, and coercive sufficient to compel compliance with the legislation or kick out unhealthy operators. It’s time to cease kicking the can. We didn’t create the issue, however it’s excessive time we handled it. It’s time to revive legislation and order to the excessive seas and defend the waters that belong to the American individuals, not oil and gasoline firms.
The USA’ prime federal auditor, the Governmental Accountability Workplace (GAO), simply launched a report chronicling an ongoing crime wave on America’s public waters.
This scathing report discovered threats to navigation, imperiled security of American mariners and offshore employees, air pollution that harms communities and fisheries, and a looming tab that might value the American public between $40 and $70 billion. Shocked you haven’t learn something about this but? Preserve studying.
Violating federal legislation, regulation, and even express contracts with the American authorities, the perpetrators embody a few of the largest oil and gasoline firms on the planet who act with impunity. Much more stunning is that the regulators who’re supposed to stop this are both unwilling or unable to cease them.
The GAO discovered that regardless of these firms’ eye-watering income, they’ve left 700 offshore oil and gasoline wells and 500 platforms which might be late for dismantling and decommissioning within the Gulf of Mexico. The GAO additionally discovered that the Bureau of Security and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the enforcement company patrolling oil and gasoline operations in American waters, is failing to carry firms who’re breaking the legislation accountable.
Once we consider against the law wave, we consider carjackings and pickpockets – theft of private property on the private degree. We have a tendency not to consider shadowy fits in London or Houston failing to wash up hulking and rusting platforms creaking in an ocean breeze – or hurling projectiles throughout a class 5 hurricane. However these are certainly crimes, and these oil and gasoline CEOs are getting off scot-free.
This difficulty just isn’t one thing new. As a coverage analyst within the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration, I used to be tasked with exploring potential in-house options to cope with the trash left behind by oil and gasoline firms rusting within the Gulf and the way we may forestall it from taking place sooner or later.
I explored quite a lot of choices, together with a legislative choice to impose a new industry-wide severance tax and set up a decommissioning belief fund to guard the American public from the looming invoice left by oil and gasoline firms. And even years earlier than, an inside authorities memo from the then Marine Minerals Service (MMS) circa 1990, detailed the very same issues I used to be attempting to unravel and have been later confirmed by the GAO report.
One would assume that huge oil and gasoline firms and personal fairness corporations making record-breaking income may simply clear up their messes in our waters. Simply within the final 9 years, the Gulf OCS produced sufficient crude oil to generate an estimated $76 billion in revenue siphoned from our public assets, which is greater than sufficient to pay the price of decommissioning each rig and nicely within the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of these income and ample warning, over 75 % of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure within the Gulf of Mexico was overdue, based on BSEE’s deadlines.
Non-public firms who drill within the Outer Continental Shelf – and make a big revenue off our waters – are legally obliged to “completely plug wells, take away platforms and different amenities, decommission pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all related obstructions created by the lease operations” inside one yr of ceasing business operations. This can be a widespread sense obligation, however it doesn’t do a lot good when regulators fail to implement it. As a substitute, because the GAO report discovered, the burden of cleansing up these operations is falling on the American public. As a substitute of constructing bridges and investing in our communities, we’re selecting up their tab.
The grand irony of all of that is that the financial exercise spurred by stepping up enforcement of those obligations could possibly be vital. Imposing decommissioning obligations may start instantly, using workforces and tools as we speak. A 2022 examine estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure “would create 5,265 jobs per yr to finish this work, together with direct employees, contractors, and suppliers, [and] greater than 10,500 jobs per yr, economy-wide.” It will additionally make extra seafloor out there for different makes use of like dredging for coastal restoration and offshore wind.
BSEE and BOEM should train their authority and maintain these firms accountable for breaking the legislation, fleecing the American public, and destroying our pure assets. Penalties should be swift, public, and coercive sufficient to compel compliance with the legislation or kick out unhealthy operators. It’s time to cease kicking the can. We didn’t create the issue, however it’s excessive time we handled it. It’s time to revive legislation and order to the excessive seas and defend the waters that belong to the American individuals, not oil and gasoline firms.
The USA’ prime federal auditor, the Governmental Accountability Workplace (GAO), simply launched a report chronicling an ongoing crime wave on America’s public waters.
This scathing report discovered threats to navigation, imperiled security of American mariners and offshore employees, air pollution that harms communities and fisheries, and a looming tab that might value the American public between $40 and $70 billion. Shocked you haven’t learn something about this but? Preserve studying.
Violating federal legislation, regulation, and even express contracts with the American authorities, the perpetrators embody a few of the largest oil and gasoline firms on the planet who act with impunity. Much more stunning is that the regulators who’re supposed to stop this are both unwilling or unable to cease them.
The GAO discovered that regardless of these firms’ eye-watering income, they’ve left 700 offshore oil and gasoline wells and 500 platforms which might be late for dismantling and decommissioning within the Gulf of Mexico. The GAO additionally discovered that the Bureau of Security and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the enforcement company patrolling oil and gasoline operations in American waters, is failing to carry firms who’re breaking the legislation accountable.
Once we consider against the law wave, we consider carjackings and pickpockets – theft of private property on the private degree. We have a tendency not to consider shadowy fits in London or Houston failing to wash up hulking and rusting platforms creaking in an ocean breeze – or hurling projectiles throughout a class 5 hurricane. However these are certainly crimes, and these oil and gasoline CEOs are getting off scot-free.
This difficulty just isn’t one thing new. As a coverage analyst within the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration, I used to be tasked with exploring potential in-house options to cope with the trash left behind by oil and gasoline firms rusting within the Gulf and the way we may forestall it from taking place sooner or later.
I explored quite a lot of choices, together with a legislative choice to impose a new industry-wide severance tax and set up a decommissioning belief fund to guard the American public from the looming invoice left by oil and gasoline firms. And even years earlier than, an inside authorities memo from the then Marine Minerals Service (MMS) circa 1990, detailed the very same issues I used to be attempting to unravel and have been later confirmed by the GAO report.
One would assume that huge oil and gasoline firms and personal fairness corporations making record-breaking income may simply clear up their messes in our waters. Simply within the final 9 years, the Gulf OCS produced sufficient crude oil to generate an estimated $76 billion in revenue siphoned from our public assets, which is greater than sufficient to pay the price of decommissioning each rig and nicely within the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of these income and ample warning, over 75 % of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure within the Gulf of Mexico was overdue, based on BSEE’s deadlines.
Non-public firms who drill within the Outer Continental Shelf – and make a big revenue off our waters – are legally obliged to “completely plug wells, take away platforms and different amenities, decommission pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all related obstructions created by the lease operations” inside one yr of ceasing business operations. This can be a widespread sense obligation, however it doesn’t do a lot good when regulators fail to implement it. As a substitute, because the GAO report discovered, the burden of cleansing up these operations is falling on the American public. As a substitute of constructing bridges and investing in our communities, we’re selecting up their tab.
The grand irony of all of that is that the financial exercise spurred by stepping up enforcement of those obligations could possibly be vital. Imposing decommissioning obligations may start instantly, using workforces and tools as we speak. A 2022 examine estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure “would create 5,265 jobs per yr to finish this work, together with direct employees, contractors, and suppliers, [and] greater than 10,500 jobs per yr, economy-wide.” It will additionally make extra seafloor out there for different makes use of like dredging for coastal restoration and offshore wind.
BSEE and BOEM should train their authority and maintain these firms accountable for breaking the legislation, fleecing the American public, and destroying our pure assets. Penalties should be swift, public, and coercive sufficient to compel compliance with the legislation or kick out unhealthy operators. It’s time to cease kicking the can. We didn’t create the issue, however it’s excessive time we handled it. It’s time to revive legislation and order to the excessive seas and defend the waters that belong to the American individuals, not oil and gasoline firms.
The USA’ prime federal auditor, the Governmental Accountability Workplace (GAO), simply launched a report chronicling an ongoing crime wave on America’s public waters.
This scathing report discovered threats to navigation, imperiled security of American mariners and offshore employees, air pollution that harms communities and fisheries, and a looming tab that might value the American public between $40 and $70 billion. Shocked you haven’t learn something about this but? Preserve studying.
Violating federal legislation, regulation, and even express contracts with the American authorities, the perpetrators embody a few of the largest oil and gasoline firms on the planet who act with impunity. Much more stunning is that the regulators who’re supposed to stop this are both unwilling or unable to cease them.
The GAO discovered that regardless of these firms’ eye-watering income, they’ve left 700 offshore oil and gasoline wells and 500 platforms which might be late for dismantling and decommissioning within the Gulf of Mexico. The GAO additionally discovered that the Bureau of Security and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the enforcement company patrolling oil and gasoline operations in American waters, is failing to carry firms who’re breaking the legislation accountable.
Once we consider against the law wave, we consider carjackings and pickpockets – theft of private property on the private degree. We have a tendency not to consider shadowy fits in London or Houston failing to wash up hulking and rusting platforms creaking in an ocean breeze – or hurling projectiles throughout a class 5 hurricane. However these are certainly crimes, and these oil and gasoline CEOs are getting off scot-free.
This difficulty just isn’t one thing new. As a coverage analyst within the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration, I used to be tasked with exploring potential in-house options to cope with the trash left behind by oil and gasoline firms rusting within the Gulf and the way we may forestall it from taking place sooner or later.
I explored quite a lot of choices, together with a legislative choice to impose a new industry-wide severance tax and set up a decommissioning belief fund to guard the American public from the looming invoice left by oil and gasoline firms. And even years earlier than, an inside authorities memo from the then Marine Minerals Service (MMS) circa 1990, detailed the very same issues I used to be attempting to unravel and have been later confirmed by the GAO report.
One would assume that huge oil and gasoline firms and personal fairness corporations making record-breaking income may simply clear up their messes in our waters. Simply within the final 9 years, the Gulf OCS produced sufficient crude oil to generate an estimated $76 billion in revenue siphoned from our public assets, which is greater than sufficient to pay the price of decommissioning each rig and nicely within the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of these income and ample warning, over 75 % of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure within the Gulf of Mexico was overdue, based on BSEE’s deadlines.
Non-public firms who drill within the Outer Continental Shelf – and make a big revenue off our waters – are legally obliged to “completely plug wells, take away platforms and different amenities, decommission pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all related obstructions created by the lease operations” inside one yr of ceasing business operations. This can be a widespread sense obligation, however it doesn’t do a lot good when regulators fail to implement it. As a substitute, because the GAO report discovered, the burden of cleansing up these operations is falling on the American public. As a substitute of constructing bridges and investing in our communities, we’re selecting up their tab.
The grand irony of all of that is that the financial exercise spurred by stepping up enforcement of those obligations could possibly be vital. Imposing decommissioning obligations may start instantly, using workforces and tools as we speak. A 2022 examine estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure “would create 5,265 jobs per yr to finish this work, together with direct employees, contractors, and suppliers, [and] greater than 10,500 jobs per yr, economy-wide.” It will additionally make extra seafloor out there for different makes use of like dredging for coastal restoration and offshore wind.
BSEE and BOEM should train their authority and maintain these firms accountable for breaking the legislation, fleecing the American public, and destroying our pure assets. Penalties should be swift, public, and coercive sufficient to compel compliance with the legislation or kick out unhealthy operators. It’s time to cease kicking the can. We didn’t create the issue, however it’s excessive time we handled it. It’s time to revive legislation and order to the excessive seas and defend the waters that belong to the American individuals, not oil and gasoline firms.
The USA’ prime federal auditor, the Governmental Accountability Workplace (GAO), simply launched a report chronicling an ongoing crime wave on America’s public waters.
This scathing report discovered threats to navigation, imperiled security of American mariners and offshore employees, air pollution that harms communities and fisheries, and a looming tab that might value the American public between $40 and $70 billion. Shocked you haven’t learn something about this but? Preserve studying.
Violating federal legislation, regulation, and even express contracts with the American authorities, the perpetrators embody a few of the largest oil and gasoline firms on the planet who act with impunity. Much more stunning is that the regulators who’re supposed to stop this are both unwilling or unable to cease them.
The GAO discovered that regardless of these firms’ eye-watering income, they’ve left 700 offshore oil and gasoline wells and 500 platforms which might be late for dismantling and decommissioning within the Gulf of Mexico. The GAO additionally discovered that the Bureau of Security and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the enforcement company patrolling oil and gasoline operations in American waters, is failing to carry firms who’re breaking the legislation accountable.
Once we consider against the law wave, we consider carjackings and pickpockets – theft of private property on the private degree. We have a tendency not to consider shadowy fits in London or Houston failing to wash up hulking and rusting platforms creaking in an ocean breeze – or hurling projectiles throughout a class 5 hurricane. However these are certainly crimes, and these oil and gasoline CEOs are getting off scot-free.
This difficulty just isn’t one thing new. As a coverage analyst within the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration, I used to be tasked with exploring potential in-house options to cope with the trash left behind by oil and gasoline firms rusting within the Gulf and the way we may forestall it from taking place sooner or later.
I explored quite a lot of choices, together with a legislative choice to impose a new industry-wide severance tax and set up a decommissioning belief fund to guard the American public from the looming invoice left by oil and gasoline firms. And even years earlier than, an inside authorities memo from the then Marine Minerals Service (MMS) circa 1990, detailed the very same issues I used to be attempting to unravel and have been later confirmed by the GAO report.
One would assume that huge oil and gasoline firms and personal fairness corporations making record-breaking income may simply clear up their messes in our waters. Simply within the final 9 years, the Gulf OCS produced sufficient crude oil to generate an estimated $76 billion in revenue siphoned from our public assets, which is greater than sufficient to pay the price of decommissioning each rig and nicely within the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of these income and ample warning, over 75 % of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure within the Gulf of Mexico was overdue, based on BSEE’s deadlines.
Non-public firms who drill within the Outer Continental Shelf – and make a big revenue off our waters – are legally obliged to “completely plug wells, take away platforms and different amenities, decommission pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all related obstructions created by the lease operations” inside one yr of ceasing business operations. This can be a widespread sense obligation, however it doesn’t do a lot good when regulators fail to implement it. As a substitute, because the GAO report discovered, the burden of cleansing up these operations is falling on the American public. As a substitute of constructing bridges and investing in our communities, we’re selecting up their tab.
The grand irony of all of that is that the financial exercise spurred by stepping up enforcement of those obligations could possibly be vital. Imposing decommissioning obligations may start instantly, using workforces and tools as we speak. A 2022 examine estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure “would create 5,265 jobs per yr to finish this work, together with direct employees, contractors, and suppliers, [and] greater than 10,500 jobs per yr, economy-wide.” It will additionally make extra seafloor out there for different makes use of like dredging for coastal restoration and offshore wind.
BSEE and BOEM should train their authority and maintain these firms accountable for breaking the legislation, fleecing the American public, and destroying our pure assets. Penalties should be swift, public, and coercive sufficient to compel compliance with the legislation or kick out unhealthy operators. It’s time to cease kicking the can. We didn’t create the issue, however it’s excessive time we handled it. It’s time to revive legislation and order to the excessive seas and defend the waters that belong to the American individuals, not oil and gasoline firms.
The USA’ prime federal auditor, the Governmental Accountability Workplace (GAO), simply launched a report chronicling an ongoing crime wave on America’s public waters.
This scathing report discovered threats to navigation, imperiled security of American mariners and offshore employees, air pollution that harms communities and fisheries, and a looming tab that might value the American public between $40 and $70 billion. Shocked you haven’t learn something about this but? Preserve studying.
Violating federal legislation, regulation, and even express contracts with the American authorities, the perpetrators embody a few of the largest oil and gasoline firms on the planet who act with impunity. Much more stunning is that the regulators who’re supposed to stop this are both unwilling or unable to cease them.
The GAO discovered that regardless of these firms’ eye-watering income, they’ve left 700 offshore oil and gasoline wells and 500 platforms which might be late for dismantling and decommissioning within the Gulf of Mexico. The GAO additionally discovered that the Bureau of Security and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the enforcement company patrolling oil and gasoline operations in American waters, is failing to carry firms who’re breaking the legislation accountable.
Once we consider against the law wave, we consider carjackings and pickpockets – theft of private property on the private degree. We have a tendency not to consider shadowy fits in London or Houston failing to wash up hulking and rusting platforms creaking in an ocean breeze – or hurling projectiles throughout a class 5 hurricane. However these are certainly crimes, and these oil and gasoline CEOs are getting off scot-free.
This difficulty just isn’t one thing new. As a coverage analyst within the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration, I used to be tasked with exploring potential in-house options to cope with the trash left behind by oil and gasoline firms rusting within the Gulf and the way we may forestall it from taking place sooner or later.
I explored quite a lot of choices, together with a legislative choice to impose a new industry-wide severance tax and set up a decommissioning belief fund to guard the American public from the looming invoice left by oil and gasoline firms. And even years earlier than, an inside authorities memo from the then Marine Minerals Service (MMS) circa 1990, detailed the very same issues I used to be attempting to unravel and have been later confirmed by the GAO report.
One would assume that huge oil and gasoline firms and personal fairness corporations making record-breaking income may simply clear up their messes in our waters. Simply within the final 9 years, the Gulf OCS produced sufficient crude oil to generate an estimated $76 billion in revenue siphoned from our public assets, which is greater than sufficient to pay the price of decommissioning each rig and nicely within the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of these income and ample warning, over 75 % of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure within the Gulf of Mexico was overdue, based on BSEE’s deadlines.
Non-public firms who drill within the Outer Continental Shelf – and make a big revenue off our waters – are legally obliged to “completely plug wells, take away platforms and different amenities, decommission pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all related obstructions created by the lease operations” inside one yr of ceasing business operations. This can be a widespread sense obligation, however it doesn’t do a lot good when regulators fail to implement it. As a substitute, because the GAO report discovered, the burden of cleansing up these operations is falling on the American public. As a substitute of constructing bridges and investing in our communities, we’re selecting up their tab.
The grand irony of all of that is that the financial exercise spurred by stepping up enforcement of those obligations could possibly be vital. Imposing decommissioning obligations may start instantly, using workforces and tools as we speak. A 2022 examine estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure “would create 5,265 jobs per yr to finish this work, together with direct employees, contractors, and suppliers, [and] greater than 10,500 jobs per yr, economy-wide.” It will additionally make extra seafloor out there for different makes use of like dredging for coastal restoration and offshore wind.
BSEE and BOEM should train their authority and maintain these firms accountable for breaking the legislation, fleecing the American public, and destroying our pure assets. Penalties should be swift, public, and coercive sufficient to compel compliance with the legislation or kick out unhealthy operators. It’s time to cease kicking the can. We didn’t create the issue, however it’s excessive time we handled it. It’s time to revive legislation and order to the excessive seas and defend the waters that belong to the American individuals, not oil and gasoline firms.
The USA’ prime federal auditor, the Governmental Accountability Workplace (GAO), simply launched a report chronicling an ongoing crime wave on America’s public waters.
This scathing report discovered threats to navigation, imperiled security of American mariners and offshore employees, air pollution that harms communities and fisheries, and a looming tab that might value the American public between $40 and $70 billion. Shocked you haven’t learn something about this but? Preserve studying.
Violating federal legislation, regulation, and even express contracts with the American authorities, the perpetrators embody a few of the largest oil and gasoline firms on the planet who act with impunity. Much more stunning is that the regulators who’re supposed to stop this are both unwilling or unable to cease them.
The GAO discovered that regardless of these firms’ eye-watering income, they’ve left 700 offshore oil and gasoline wells and 500 platforms which might be late for dismantling and decommissioning within the Gulf of Mexico. The GAO additionally discovered that the Bureau of Security and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the enforcement company patrolling oil and gasoline operations in American waters, is failing to carry firms who’re breaking the legislation accountable.
Once we consider against the law wave, we consider carjackings and pickpockets – theft of private property on the private degree. We have a tendency not to consider shadowy fits in London or Houston failing to wash up hulking and rusting platforms creaking in an ocean breeze – or hurling projectiles throughout a class 5 hurricane. However these are certainly crimes, and these oil and gasoline CEOs are getting off scot-free.
This difficulty just isn’t one thing new. As a coverage analyst within the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration, I used to be tasked with exploring potential in-house options to cope with the trash left behind by oil and gasoline firms rusting within the Gulf and the way we may forestall it from taking place sooner or later.
I explored quite a lot of choices, together with a legislative choice to impose a new industry-wide severance tax and set up a decommissioning belief fund to guard the American public from the looming invoice left by oil and gasoline firms. And even years earlier than, an inside authorities memo from the then Marine Minerals Service (MMS) circa 1990, detailed the very same issues I used to be attempting to unravel and have been later confirmed by the GAO report.
One would assume that huge oil and gasoline firms and personal fairness corporations making record-breaking income may simply clear up their messes in our waters. Simply within the final 9 years, the Gulf OCS produced sufficient crude oil to generate an estimated $76 billion in revenue siphoned from our public assets, which is greater than sufficient to pay the price of decommissioning each rig and nicely within the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of these income and ample warning, over 75 % of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure within the Gulf of Mexico was overdue, based on BSEE’s deadlines.
Non-public firms who drill within the Outer Continental Shelf – and make a big revenue off our waters – are legally obliged to “completely plug wells, take away platforms and different amenities, decommission pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all related obstructions created by the lease operations” inside one yr of ceasing business operations. This can be a widespread sense obligation, however it doesn’t do a lot good when regulators fail to implement it. As a substitute, because the GAO report discovered, the burden of cleansing up these operations is falling on the American public. As a substitute of constructing bridges and investing in our communities, we’re selecting up their tab.
The grand irony of all of that is that the financial exercise spurred by stepping up enforcement of those obligations could possibly be vital. Imposing decommissioning obligations may start instantly, using workforces and tools as we speak. A 2022 examine estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure “would create 5,265 jobs per yr to finish this work, together with direct employees, contractors, and suppliers, [and] greater than 10,500 jobs per yr, economy-wide.” It will additionally make extra seafloor out there for different makes use of like dredging for coastal restoration and offshore wind.
BSEE and BOEM should train their authority and maintain these firms accountable for breaking the legislation, fleecing the American public, and destroying our pure assets. Penalties should be swift, public, and coercive sufficient to compel compliance with the legislation or kick out unhealthy operators. It’s time to cease kicking the can. We didn’t create the issue, however it’s excessive time we handled it. It’s time to revive legislation and order to the excessive seas and defend the waters that belong to the American individuals, not oil and gasoline firms.
The USA’ prime federal auditor, the Governmental Accountability Workplace (GAO), simply launched a report chronicling an ongoing crime wave on America’s public waters.
This scathing report discovered threats to navigation, imperiled security of American mariners and offshore employees, air pollution that harms communities and fisheries, and a looming tab that might value the American public between $40 and $70 billion. Shocked you haven’t learn something about this but? Preserve studying.
Violating federal legislation, regulation, and even express contracts with the American authorities, the perpetrators embody a few of the largest oil and gasoline firms on the planet who act with impunity. Much more stunning is that the regulators who’re supposed to stop this are both unwilling or unable to cease them.
The GAO discovered that regardless of these firms’ eye-watering income, they’ve left 700 offshore oil and gasoline wells and 500 platforms which might be late for dismantling and decommissioning within the Gulf of Mexico. The GAO additionally discovered that the Bureau of Security and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the enforcement company patrolling oil and gasoline operations in American waters, is failing to carry firms who’re breaking the legislation accountable.
Once we consider against the law wave, we consider carjackings and pickpockets – theft of private property on the private degree. We have a tendency not to consider shadowy fits in London or Houston failing to wash up hulking and rusting platforms creaking in an ocean breeze – or hurling projectiles throughout a class 5 hurricane. However these are certainly crimes, and these oil and gasoline CEOs are getting off scot-free.
This difficulty just isn’t one thing new. As a coverage analyst within the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration, I used to be tasked with exploring potential in-house options to cope with the trash left behind by oil and gasoline firms rusting within the Gulf and the way we may forestall it from taking place sooner or later.
I explored quite a lot of choices, together with a legislative choice to impose a new industry-wide severance tax and set up a decommissioning belief fund to guard the American public from the looming invoice left by oil and gasoline firms. And even years earlier than, an inside authorities memo from the then Marine Minerals Service (MMS) circa 1990, detailed the very same issues I used to be attempting to unravel and have been later confirmed by the GAO report.
One would assume that huge oil and gasoline firms and personal fairness corporations making record-breaking income may simply clear up their messes in our waters. Simply within the final 9 years, the Gulf OCS produced sufficient crude oil to generate an estimated $76 billion in revenue siphoned from our public assets, which is greater than sufficient to pay the price of decommissioning each rig and nicely within the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of these income and ample warning, over 75 % of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure within the Gulf of Mexico was overdue, based on BSEE’s deadlines.
Non-public firms who drill within the Outer Continental Shelf – and make a big revenue off our waters – are legally obliged to “completely plug wells, take away platforms and different amenities, decommission pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all related obstructions created by the lease operations” inside one yr of ceasing business operations. This can be a widespread sense obligation, however it doesn’t do a lot good when regulators fail to implement it. As a substitute, because the GAO report discovered, the burden of cleansing up these operations is falling on the American public. As a substitute of constructing bridges and investing in our communities, we’re selecting up their tab.
The grand irony of all of that is that the financial exercise spurred by stepping up enforcement of those obligations could possibly be vital. Imposing decommissioning obligations may start instantly, using workforces and tools as we speak. A 2022 examine estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure “would create 5,265 jobs per yr to finish this work, together with direct employees, contractors, and suppliers, [and] greater than 10,500 jobs per yr, economy-wide.” It will additionally make extra seafloor out there for different makes use of like dredging for coastal restoration and offshore wind.
BSEE and BOEM should train their authority and maintain these firms accountable for breaking the legislation, fleecing the American public, and destroying our pure assets. Penalties should be swift, public, and coercive sufficient to compel compliance with the legislation or kick out unhealthy operators. It’s time to cease kicking the can. We didn’t create the issue, however it’s excessive time we handled it. It’s time to revive legislation and order to the excessive seas and defend the waters that belong to the American individuals, not oil and gasoline firms.